Note the 34" seat pitch. That doesn't mean any more legroom since today's planes have much thinner seat backs.

So yeah, keep on telling us how much more fun it was to fly back in the day. Before you actually did it.

As for cost, it costs me about the same today, @$100-125 to fly San Juan/NYC as it did back in 1971. Not adjusted for inflation, in actual dollars. Other itineraries are similar.

If I wanted to cheap it, I could even fly Chalk Airways. They had a DC3 that flew SJ-NY for $50-60. It took about 8 hours including a stop for refueling. Yeah, that was some fun flying. Ever flown in a DC3? Or any other piston prop airliner? It is kind of cool for 15-20 minutes. After that? Not so much.

In 1974 I had been married 3-4 months and my bride and I were going to catch a military hop to NJ and then go visit my parents from there.

By the time we got to the terminal, everyone that had orders on the flight had shown up and the plane had left early.

While trying to figure out what to do, an Air Force guy came through shouting that they were about to leave for Niagara Falls if anyone wanted a ride. That worked for us so we went with him.

It was a piston prop C-130 cargo plane with nylon seats along the side and cargo in the middle. Aft of the wing temperature was in the 40's. Forward in the 90's. Noise and vibration level extremely high. We spent the 8 hour flight trying to get comfortable. Never did.

About 2-3 hours in the pilot came back to use the honeypot, saw my wife and had a fit. Her presence was apparently highly non-regulation. She was wondering if they were going to make her get off.

I just played dumb, told him I didn't know who let her on the plane, all AF types look the same to me. In the Navy we were somewhat more informal and I didn't know better and so on.

At Niagara Falls, we had to wait on the plane until they could sneak her off with nobody seeing.

That was my wife's first plane ride. She wondered it was not like in the movies. We came back commercial and she was much happier.

Whether or not the scene in my picture ever even existed is irrelevant. My point is, flying today sucks no matter how much it, or a gallon of milk, costs. It could be free and I would feel no differently.

johnfajardohenry wrote:Now anyone can afford to fly.

Maybe this is part of the problem. If I wanted to spend several hours adjacent to some slob in sweatpants and flipflops with his ipod cranked up, I could go hang out with my cousin's unemployed boyfriend for free.